To _The Adventurer_.
Sir,
It has been observed, I think, by Sir WILLIAM TEMPLE, and after him by
almost every other writer, that England affords a greater variety of
characters than the rest of the world. This is ascribed to the liberty
prevailing amongst us, which gives every man the privilege of being
wise or foolish his own way, and preserves him from the necessity of
hypocrisy or the servility of imitation.
That the position itself is true, I am not completely satisfied. To be
nearly acquainted with the people of different countries can happen to
very few; and in life, as in every thing else beheld at a distance,
there appears an even uniformity: the petty discriminations which
diversify the natural character, are not discoverable but by a close
inspection; we, therefore, find them most at home, because there we
have most opportunities of remarking them. Much less am I convinced,
that his peculiar diversification, if it be real, is the consequence
of peculiar liberty; for where is the government to be found that
superintends individuals with so much vigilance, as not to leave their
private conduct without restraint? Can it enter into a reasonable mind
to imagine, that men of every other nation are not equally masters of
their own time or houses with ourselves, and equally at liberty to be
parsimonious or profuse, frolic or sullen, abstinent or luxurious?
Liberty is certainly necessary to the full play of predominant
humours; but such liberty is to be found alike under the government of
the many or the few, in monarchies or in commonwealths.
How readily the predominant passion snatches an interval of liberty,
and how fast it expands itself when the weight of restraint is taken
away, I had lately an opportunity to discover, as I took a journey
into the country in a stage coach; which, as every journey is a kind
of adventure, may be very properly related to you, though I can
display no such extraordinary assembly as CERVANTES has collected at
DON QUIXOTE'S inn.
In a stage coach the passengers are for the most part wholly unknown
to one another, and without expectation of ever meeting again when
their journey is at an end; one should, therefore, imagine, that it
was of little importance to any of them, what conjectures the rest
should form concerning him. Yet so it is, that as all think themselves
secure from detection, all assume that character of which they are
most desirous, and on no occasion is the general ambition of
superiority more apparently indulged.
On the day of our departure, in the twilight of the morning, I
ascended the vehicle with three men and two women, my fellow
travellers. It was easy to observe the affected elevation of mien with
which every one entered, and the supercilious civility with which they
paid their compliments to each other. When the first ceremony was
dispatched, we sat silent for a long time, all employed in collecting
importance into our faces, and endeavouring to strike reverence and
submission into our companions.
It is always observable that silence propagates itself, and that the
longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find any
thing to say. We began now to wish for conversation; but no one seemed
inclined to descend from his dignity, or first to propose a topic of
discourse. At last a corpulent gentleman, who had equipped himself for
this expedition with a scarlet surtout and a large hat with a broad
lace, drew out his watch, looked on it in silence, and then held it
dangling at his finger. This was, I suppose, understood by all the
company as an invitation to ask the time of the day, but no body
appeared to heed his overture; and his desire to be talking so far
overcame his resentment, that he let us know of his own accord that it
was past five, and that in two hours we should be at breakfast.
His condescension was thrown away; we continued all obdurate; the
ladies held up their heads; I amused myself with watching their
behaviour; and of the other two, one seemed to employ himself in
counting the trees as we drove by them, the other drew his hat over
his eyes and counterfeited a slumber. The man of benevolence, to shew
that he was not depressed by our neglect, hummed a tune and beat time
upon his snuff-box.
Thus universally displeased with one another, and not much delighted
with ourselves, we came at last to the little inn appointed for our
repast; and all began at once to recompense themselves for the
constraint of silence, by innumerable questions and orders to the
people that attended us. At last, what every one had called for was
got, or declared impossible to be got at that time, and we were
persuaded to sit round the same table; when the gentleman in the red
surtout looked again upon his watch, told us that we had half an hour
to spare, but he was sorry to see so little merriment among us; that
all fellow travellers were for the time upon the level, and that it
was always his way to make himself one of the company. "I remember,"
says he, "it was on just such a morning as this, that I and my lord
Mumble and the duke of Tenterden were out upon a ramble: we called at
a little house as it might be this; and my landlady, I warrant you,
not suspecting to whom she was talking, was so jocular and facetious,
and made so many merry answers to our questions, that we were all
ready to burst with laughter. At last the good woman happening to
overhear me whisper the duke and call him by his title, was so
surprised and confounded that we could scarcely get a word from her;
and the duke never met me from that day to this, but he talks of the
little house, and quarrels with me for terrifying the landlady."
He had scarcely had time to congratulate himself on the veneration
which this narrative must have procured him from the company, when one
of the ladies having reached out for a plate on a distant part of the
table, began to remark the inconveniences of travelling, and the
difficulty which they who never sat at home without a great number of
attendants found in performing for themselves such offices as the road
required; but that people of quality often travelled in disguise, and
might be generally known from the vulgar by their condescension to
poor inn-keepers, and the allowance which they made for any defect in
their entertainment; that for her part, while people were civil and
meant well, it was never her custom to find fault, for one was not to
expect upon a journey all that one enjoyed at one's own house.
A General emulation seemed now to be excited. One of the men, who had
hitherto said nothing, called for the last news paper; and having
perused it a-while with deep pensiveness, "It is impossible," says he,
"for any man to guess how to act with regard to the stocks: last week
it was the general opinion that they would fall; and I sold out twenty
thousand pounds in order to a purchase: they have now risen
unexpectedly; and I make no doubt but at my return to London I shall
risk thirty thousand pounds amongst them again."
A young man, who had hitherto distinguished himself only by the
vivacity of his look, and a frequent diversion of his eyes from one
object to another, upon this closed his snuff-box, and told us that
"he had a hundred times talked with the chancellor and the judges on
the subject of the stocks; that for his part he did not pretend to be
well acquainted with the principles on which they were established,
but had always heard them reckoned pernicious to trade, uncertain in
their produce, and unsolid in their foundation; and that he had been
advised by three judges his most intimate friends, never to venture
his money in the funds, but to put it out upon land security, till he
could light upon an estate in his own country."
It might be expected that upon these glimpses of latent dignity, we
should all have began to look round us with veneration; and have
behaved like the princes of romance, when the enchantment that
disguises them is dissolved, and they discover the dignity of each
other: yet it happened, that none of these hints made much impression
on the company; every one was apparently suspected of endeavouring to
impose false appearances upon the rest; all continued their
haughtiness, in hopes to enforce their claims; and all grew every hour
more sullen, because they found their representations of themselves
without effect.
Thus we travelled on four days with malevolence perpetually
increasing, and without any endeavour but to outvie each other in
superciliousness and neglect; and when any two of us could separate
ourselves for a moment, we vented our indignation at the sauciness of
the rest.
At length the journey was at an end; and time and chance, that strip
off all disguises, have discovered, that the intimate of lords and
dukes is a nobleman's butler, who has furnished a shop with the money
he has saved; the man who deals so largely in the funds, is the clerk
of a broker in 'Change-alley; the lady who so carefully concealed her
quality, keeps a cook-shop behind the Exchange; and the young man, who
is so happy in the friendship of the judges, engrosses and transcribes
for bread in a garret of the Temple. Of one of the women only I could
make no disadvantageous detection, because she had assumed no
character, but accommodated herself to the scene before her, without
any struggle for distinction or superiority.
I could not forbear to reflect on the folly of practising a fraud,
which, as the event shewed, had been already practised too often to
succeed, and by the success of which no advantage could have been
obtained; of assuming a character, which was to end with the day; and
of claiming upon false pretences honours which must perish with the
breath that paid them.
But, MR. ADVENTURER, let not those who laugh at me and my companions,
think this folly confined to a stage coach. Every man in the journey
of life takes the same advantage of the ignorance of his fellow
travellers, disguises himself in counterfeited merit, and hears those
praises with complacency which his conscience reproaches him for
accepting. Every man deceives himself, while he thinks he is deceiving
others; and forgets that the time is at hand when every illusion shall
cease, when fictitious excellence shall be torn away, and ALL must be
shown to ALL in their real estate.
I am, Sir,
Your humble Servant,
VIATOR.
_Samuel Johnson._